Mumbai Chabad House Restored; Nears Completion

The Nariman House under siege. Inset: Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, HYD.

On Rosh Chodesh Elul, August 26, 2014, a grand dedication ceremony will be held for the newly-restored Nariman House, the Chabad Center in Mumbai, India that was destroyed during a four-day terrorist siege which claimed the lives of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, HYD, and four other Jews.

The renovated Chabad Center will directed by the current Shluchim to Mumbai, RabbiYisroel and Chaya Kozlovsky.

“I determined right then and there that Gabi and Rivky’s work, for which they gave their lives, would not be undone,” Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, Vice-Chairman of Merkos L’inyonei Chinuch, told Shturem.net. “We pledged to rebuild their Chabad House, so that the light of their Neshomos will continue to shine from Mumbai to all corners of the earth.”

“This pledge was not easy to fulfill,” Rabbi Kotlarsky continued. “The rebuilding of the Mumbai Chabad Center was a long and emotionally-charged challenge, as well as a major bureaucratic complication.”

In spite of all the challenges, the renovation of the building went ahead as planned, and will culminate in its rededication next month.

The building will be dedicated in memory of the Holtzbergs, and will be a “lighthouse of warmth and brotherly love,” according to one family member.

In addition to the building’s dedication, a Sefer Torah written by Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg’s father in his memory will be completed and welcomed to the center’s main synagogue.